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Know facts on Paul Ryan plan

Regarding Victor Reilly’s letter “An informed vote is vital” (Sept. 21): This title is the only statement in his letter I agree with. “Correct” information is the one thing that is missing from his letter. There is not enough space in this format to correct the misinformation in his letter, so I would encourage all voters to check the facts.

Mr. Reilly contends the Paul Ryan plan would give tax cuts to the wealthiest while cutting programs to the poor, causing people to starve in the streets. It sound like that statement came right off the Obama website.

Ryan’s plan simplifies the tax code by going from six tax rates to two with a 10-percent tax on income up to $100,000 for joint filers, and $50,000 for single filers. This represents a tax cut for this group. People making less that $50,000 likely would pay nothing, as they do now.

The rate for those making over $100,000 would be 25 percent. He also closes some tax loopholes to make his plan revenue-neutral.

As for the multitudes who would be starving in the streets as a result of Ryan’s cuts – well, Ryan’s plan only “slows” the growth of some welfare programs. Instead of growing at 10 percent each year as they do now, they would grow at 3 percent. I would encourage all voters to do their own research and not to take as “fact” any information (or misinformation) as truth.

As the quote goes, sometimes attributed to Thomas Jefferson: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”

I would note one glaring subject that Mr. Reilly and Marxists refuse to acknowledge – our national debt. We now have $16-plus trillion of debt partly because of the “war on poverty” that he and others like him declared almost 50 years ago. We have lost that war, and it’s time to try something different before we all join the ranks of the poor.